Spoiler free Adventure Path recommendations?

[Ambrus]

My group and I have recently ended our Planescape campaign and I'm planning on picking up one of Paizo's great Adventure Paths for our next Pathfinder campaign. I'm wondering what kind of settings, adventures and challenges are involved in the various post Rise of the Runelords A.P.s. I'd also like, if possible, to read spoiler free summaries so that I don't ruin all of the APs for myself if I happen to play through one in the future. It's a tough balancing act; trying to learn about the various APs without learning too much about them.

So can anyone help me out? Which APs are the most fun to run? Which are the most fun to play through? Which features the best story? Speaking broadly, what elements are prominent in each: political intrigue, dungeon exploration, monster bashing, mystery solving, wilderness adventuring, gritty urban adventuring, subtaranean adventuring, extraplanar adventuring, etc, etc. Thanks for the help!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

My favorite so far has been Curse of the Crimson Throne - gritty urban (including a plague), political intrigue (corruption on all levels), mystery solving (murder, revenge, and corruption), and a hero aside from the PCs, righting wrongs and swashing his buckler. More than a touch of the Scarlet Pimpernel in this path.

The Auld Grump

 

[amnuxoll]

I own all the Adventure Path books and have read them all *except* Crimson Throne which a friend of mine is currently running for us. So, I have played Crimson Throne. I've also DMed Legacy of Fire (see below).

I want to preface by saying that _all_ of these APs are good and I'd be happy to run any of them. But, some are better than others. Based on my experience, I rank them in the following order from best to worst:

1. Crimson Throne
I may be biased here since I have a great DM and I can let my imagination fill in gaps that I'd notice if I were the DM. But we are having a great time with this one. It's a city-based campaign with a lot of intrigue and plot twists. I've noticed that the standing opinion on the web is that this is the best. Incidentally, we're running it with a significantly customized version of Iron Heroes rules.

2. Council of Thieves
The final volume of this one isn't out yet but I'm pretty confident the path is a winner unless that last book is a dud. Like Crimsom Throne, it's a city-based campaign that keeps the PCs guessing and toys with the characters' minds and egos a bit. It does a better job of mixing things up than Throne does. There is a play built into the second act that could either make or break the campaign so I don't recommend it unless you have avid roleplayers in your group. I rank it behind Throne because of the iffy-ness of the play and because it starts off somewhat "meh". If you run this, start with book 2.

3. Legacy of Fire
I DMed this last Summer...or part of it anyway. If I was ranking these APs solely on flavor, Legacy wins by a wide margin. It's a wonderfully immersive setting. Unfortunately, it ends poorly. The first three mods are great. By the time you get to the latter half of book 4 the players begin to realize how the story is going to end and that kind of ruined it for my group since the mystery was gone it just turns into a series of good but not great dungeon crawls in books 5 & 6. Easy to fix though. If I ran it again I'd just put the final fight from book 6 into book 4 and leave book 5 out altogether. If I did that, then this one becomes my favorite AP instead of 3rd place, so it's definitely worth playing. (Incidentally, if you'd like to run it with D&D 4e I've converted much of it to that system.)

4. Rise of the Runelords
This was the first one they did as Paizo and it's clear that they were under the gun and trying a little too hard to make it awesome. The story feels disconnected like six separate stories rather than one connected arc. However, those six stories are rather good. I could see a really excellent campaign falling out of just taking one or two of the books and building a campaign around that.

5. Second Darkness
This doesn't feel like it will drag the players into the story the way the other APs do. The story poses an "end of the world" scenario as a motivation for the PCs but a) it's not made completely clear to the PCs right away and b) it feels cliché. I can see the players wondering a lot "What are we doing again? And why are we doing this?" If they go ahead and follow through there are some good parts to it. Also, it's an awesome alternative way to present the drow race.

 

[Wik]

I have almost all of the pathfinder books, but I've generally been unimpressed with them - they are, for my style of play, far too complex and difficult to run. However, that being said, if detailed, plot-heavy adventures are your thing, you can't go wrong with Pathfinder.

I have to say, from my readings, that Curse of the Crimson throne seems like it'd be a fun one, as does Second Darkness. Avoid Rise of the Runelords - I ran the first two, and amnuxoll pretty much hit the nail square on the head.

 

[Truename]

However, that being said, if detailed, plot-heavy adventures are your thing, you can't go worse than Pathfinder.

Did you really mean to say that nothing is worse than Pathfinder?

 

[Wik]

Ha ha... Wooops! This is what I get for writing a blog post in between eating cereal and catching up on hockey scores!

 

[Ambrus]

Thanks for the responses. Good insight.

My favorite so far has been Curse of the Crimson Throne

1. Crimson Throne

Hm. Two votes for Crimson Throne. I have to admit that I've been playing through the first module of this AP in a PbP campaign and, although the initial setup is rather elegant and I've been having a lot of fun with the campaign, I can't figure out the unifying theme of the module. It appears, in my own limited experience, to be a series of unrelated mini-quests with nothing besides the PCs and their patrons to tie it all together. This has left me kind of dubious about the whole A.P. Am I way off mark on this one?

2. Council of Thieves
Like Crimsom Throne, it's a city-based campaign that keeps the PCs guessing and toys with the characters' minds and egos a bit. It does a better job of mixing things up than Throne does. There is a play built into the second act that could either make or break the campaign so I don't recommend it unless you have avid roleplayers in your group. I rank it behind Throne because of the iffy-ness of the play and because it starts off somewhat "meh". If you run this, start with book 2.

I'm intrigued by this one, in part because of your description but also because it's fully compliant with the new Pathfinder rules already. My players are indeed avid role-players so I'm not too worried about the play. How does it "mix things up" better than CutCT and why do you recommend skipping book 1? What would you use for the campaign start if not book 1?

3. Legacy of Fire

This A.P. sounds like the toughest sell since it appears to be entirely Arabian in feel. I'm not certain whether I or my players would take to it well or not.

4. Rise of the Runelords

I'm currently playing through this A.P. myself and so am content to skip reading it altogehter.

5. Second Darkness
I can see the players wondering a lot "What are we doing again? And why are we doing this?"

Hm. Since the chief complaint I received from my players for our last campaign was that they rarely figured out what was going on until the very end, it seems I should skip this one altogether if what you're saying is accurate.

However, that being said, if detailed, plot-heavy adventures are your thing

They are.

I don't suppose anyone's got an opinion about the Kingmaker A.P. yet, eh?

 

[amnuxoll]

It appears, in my own limited experience, to be a series of unrelated mini-quests with nothing besides the PCs and their patrons to tie it all together. This has left me kind of dubious about the whole A.P. Am I way off mark on this one?

The fact that you're saying this tells me exactly where you are in the story right now. Don't worry, it will come together for you. Captain Endrin (sp?) has more of a role to play in the story than just this one plot hook.

How does it "mix things up" better than CotCT and why do you recommend skipping book 1? What would you use for the campaign start if not book 1?

The "mix things up" means that you'll get more unique encounters and less standard combat or roleplay encounters. I'd skip book 1 by establishing its content as backstory for the PCs. Let them build on that to make their characters. I think it will work well.

This A.P. sounds like the toughest sell since it appears to be entirely Arabian in feel. I'm not certain whether I or my players would take to it well or not.

FWIW, my players loved the setting. It is *not* an Al-Qadim clone.
:AMN:

 

[roguerouge]

Crimson Throne's still their best, most cohesive AP. There's room for player initiative, nice fights, RP-opportunities galore and a bit of travel. And, yes, I too know exactly where you are. Plot cohesion's not going to be a problem. You will, however, have to read the entire series to DM it, so if you're afraid of spoilers as a player, their best is right out.

Rise of the Runelords: Run this AP if your players like a globe-trotting, finding out world-secrets, episodic feel to their campaign. The best starter town that they've run and the grossest setting in their APs...

Legacy of Fire: The first three modules were tightly integrated and provided a nice unifying objective. Then they went plane-hopping. It seems like your players like plane-hopping, so that's a possibility.

Second Darkness: If you're unemployed, this is the AP for you to DM. Tons of information needs to be written or re-written and you'll need intricate DMing to pry your players away from the initial setting. The third chapter requires players to define brave as "stupid" for crucial plot to work. The fourth chapter leaves most of a city and a civilization undetailed, which is odd given that the focus of the AP is that civilization. And the sixth is just encounters, basically a boss level of an annoyingly intricate video game. Easily their worst AP out of the box, but, with a DM who is unemployed and into writing, could have a high upside. If that's you, this may be your adventure path.

 

[James Jacobs]

Kingmaker's not yet out... but I'm about to start work on developing part 3, and I'm REALLY pleased with how it's turning out. It's pretty different from our normal model for adventure paths, so I'm eager to see how folks react to it. In a nutshell, Kingmaker is our response to the claim that Paizo Adventure Paths are too linear and not sandboxy enough. The fact that PCs build and run their own kingdom and cities should be pretty interesting as well...